# How is it that women didn't all strangle men in the 1960s? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 18, 2025, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214 "2025-08-18T13:35:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![vbob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vbob/32/4439_2.png) [@vbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vbob)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/41 "2025-08-18T20:42:47Z")
Who’s to say that many didn’t? It’s the idiot dudes who think they can get away with using a rented woodchipper - the ladies have the finest appliances made by Cuisinart, KitchenAid, not to mention giant chest freezers and children to feed…. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/42 "2025-08-18T20:45:58Z")
I’ve never been able to read Heinlein. My first impression was _Friday,_ and it seems like he doesn’t write women very well. I then tried _Starship Troopers_ and never got far enough into it to see how he wrote women in that one, because I thought it was pretty boring. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/43 "2025-08-18T20:49:55Z")
The earliest silent films featured damsel in distress stories. Tied up on railroad tracks. It did change with Joan Crawford,Bette Davis, and Barbara Stanwyck. Veronica Lake excelled at femme fatale roles. They combined attractiveness with danger. Female roles did seem to go backwards in the 60’s. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/44 "2025-08-18T20:51:19Z")
My impression of Friday-of-the-Many-Names is that he took all of his previous female characters and his wife, tossed them all in a blender, and hit puree. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/45 "2025-08-18T20:55:26Z")
The sexist zeitgeist of the sixties is what women had to fight to overcome, and we were successful for the most part. So let us celebrate that success, and stand guard over it, because there is certainly a dangerous backlash against it today that threatens to strip away all of the gains that we have made. Feminazis, indeed. The real danger is what is facing us today.in the MAGA world. Yeah, history is probably all cyclical. The struggle never ends. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/46 "2025-08-18T20:59:58Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > The sexist zeitgeist of the sixties is what women had to fight to overcome, and we were successful for the most part. It’s a testament to how hard those women fought that I felt my gender had very little impact on my education or my career, and frankly I took a lot of it for granted. Which isn’t to say I’ve never experienced sexism, just that it inspired roll-eyed exasperation rather than a legitimate threat to my goals. I do work in a woman-dominated field, though. So YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/47 "2025-08-18T21:06:56Z")
Real advertisements on TV an in magazines were worse. These are not parodies but actual ads: [Sexist and Offensive Vintage Ads From the Past that Would Never Fly Today - Rare Historical Photos](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/offensive-sexist-vintage-ads/) ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/48 "2025-08-18T21:13:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Don’t even start with the Bachrach/David 1963 song “Wives and Lovers”. Or “Girl Talk” by Neil Hefti and Bobby Troup: [BOBBY TROUP GIRL TALK original music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvsg1OHxzzM&list=RDKvsg1OHxzzM&start_radio=1) Still a beautiful melody and chord progression. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/49 "2025-08-18T21:25:29Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > The technologists had from countless generations of their machines taking care of them had their intellects atrophied, to the point where they had to use a temporary IQ boosting machine to accomplish anything vital. Which itself is a valid sci-fi concept of a previously accomplished civilization having fallen into a dead end; but unfortunately it gave us a Planet of the Bimbo Women: “Brain? What is brain?” There’s so much wrong with that episode that I’ve never even heard anyone discuss the gender politics of it. I’m not saying that _Star Trek_ had an overall balanced view of the sexes, but it wasn’t quite as simple as the worst cases made it seem. Women were damsels in distress, or husband hunters, but they were also in positions of authority, leaders, heroes, villains, and victims. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/50 "2025-08-18T21:26:06Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > It’s a testament to how hard those women fought that I felt my gender had very little impact on my education or my career, and frankly I took a lot of it for granted. Hey, in my lifetime teenage girls had to fight for the right to wear jeans and slacks to school. A female student wearing pants was practically cross-dressing, or at a minimum it was viewed as a fad inappropriate for school wear. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/51 "2025-08-18T21:28:09Z")
I remember in junior high (‘96-’97) a bunch of girls staged a sit-in because the rules for short length were stricter for girls than guys. It seemed to me like a weird hill to die on. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/52 "2025-08-18T21:30:28Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Women were damsels in distress, or husband hunters, but they were also in positions of authority, leaders, heroes, villains, and victims. Just based on the handful of episodes I’ve seen of TOS, if it was biased against anyone, it would be unattractive people, and features that society deemed unattractive, such as being disabled. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/53 "2025-08-18T21:31:02Z")
Mae West: a highly competent businesswoman and confident at handling the men in her life, came back into the era of the OP to turn the tables with both Myra Breckinridge and [Sextette.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextette) Both terrible movies, to be sure, but I’m glad they were made. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/54 "2025-08-18T21:39:16Z")
Mae West exploited a “demimonde” loophole, where if a female was willing to be pigeonholed as a “bawdy woman” she was no longer expected to remain acceptable to proper society and therefore could do as she would, having no further to fall. Another example would be the frequent appearance in film and television westerns of the woman who ran a saloon, with the unspoken assumption that she was the madam of the brothel presumably operating there (I’m looking at you _Gunsmoke_). ---
**Author:** ![DemonTree](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/demontree/32/8646_2.png) [@DemonTree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DemonTree)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/55 "2025-08-18T22:28:47Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > And those women were basically expected to have constant dinner parties and always be climbing the social ladder which sounds like my worst nightmare. I wouldn’t have fared well in that environment. Ugh, yes. Extremely unfun. However, something I’ve wondered for a while is whether strict, formal manners might actually be easier for autists, as they’d probably be more explicitly taught, and less open to interpretation. It’s probably even worse to get them wrong, though, and eccentricity might be less tolerated. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > This is why whenever I’m tempted to leave the work force for whatever reason, I don’t. Even if we could survive financially (I’m skeptical we could) it wouldn’t be worth the risk of being trapped in a relationship. I have a very nice husband but I’m taking no risks. I pretty much trust my husband, but I don’t trust myself without the routine and immediate demands of a job. It would be too easy to fritter away my time, become isolated, and end up in a mentally bad place. Also, I detest housework. My husband says he would like to stay home, and he probably would do better at it, since he always has hobby projects he wants to work on. Unfortunately, I don’t earn enough. * * * > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > > [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > > > The sexist zeitgeist of the sixties is what women had to fight to overcome, and we were successful for the most part. > > It’s a testament to how hard those women fought that I felt my gender had very little impact on my education or my career, and frankly I took a lot of it for granted. Which isn’t to say I’ve never experienced sexism, just that it inspired roll-eyed exasperation rather than a legitimate threat to my goals. I do work in a woman-dominated field, though. So YMMV. I work in a male-dominated field and my experience has been much the same. I’m grateful to the women who fought to overcome sexism in previous decades; they made a large and lasting improvement. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/56 "2025-08-18T22:45:26Z")
Truer words have never been spoken. Look at Iran and what it used to be like for women there compared to now, or even worse, Afghanistan, where the women have lost almost the right to even exist. They aren’t allowed to be educated, which makes me want to cry and puke at the same time. But it gets worse than even that for them. We are just a fucked up species. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/57 "2025-08-18T22:51:08Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **On Her Majesty’s Secret Service** (1969) – all of Blofeld’s “angels” appear to be childlike “bimbos”. Wasn’t that the point? Blofeld lured ‘bimbos’ who could be easily manipulated, so that they could unwittingly spread bioweapons. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2025, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/58 "2025-08-19T00:31:39Z")
> [@DemonTree](#): > > Reminds me of a particular fictional archetype that has almost disappeared: the ambitious woman married to an unambitious man. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > And those women were basically expected to have constant dinner parties and always be climbing the social ladder Leading to another defunct fictional archetype: that laff-a-minute premise called Having The Boss Over For Dinner, where making a good impression might mean the difference between promotion or not. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2025, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/59 "2025-08-19T00:35:14Z")
“Wives and Lovers” words were written by Hal David as a promotional tool for a movie of that name, reviewed by Bosley Crowther saying “It’s incredible that a screenplay as hackneyed and witless as this one could get past a first front-office reading in this rigid day and age…” Burt Bacharach wrote incredibly good music to go behind the words and Jack Jones got to sing it with a spectacular arrangement, making it a Best Song nominee at the Grammys and winning him Best Male Performance. It would be one of my favorite songs of all time if I didn’t have to listen to those lyrics. But it says everything about the times that it went over without complaint and a movie based on a Broadway play with that theme was seen as just another sex comedy. Because it was. And they wondered why their kids were rebelling. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2025, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214/60 "2025-08-19T00:42:38Z")
I’ve posted before that the absolute at-the-Earth’s-core nadir of sexism in 1960s spy movies was probably “Some Girls Do” (1969). The catch is that the villain’s corps of beautiful deadly women have had their brains removed and replaced with computers, basically transforming them into mostly made of meat robots. The hero “Bulldog” Drummond not only doesn’t express any particular outrage at this but ends up keeping one as the ultimate sex toy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-is-it-that-women-didnt-all-strangle-men-in-the-1960s/1022214.md?page=4)